Pain of cup exit fuels Wrexham for Coventry test

Coventry City have earned 28 points from their opening 12 Championship games of the season, double Wrexham's tally of 14

Championship: Wrexham v Coventry City

Venue: Stok Cae Ras, Wrexham Date: Friday, 31 October Kick off: 20:00 GMT

Coverage: Follow live text commentary and scores, followed by report and reaction on the BBC Sport website and app. Listen live on BBC Radio Wales north FM & DAB

Phil Parkinson hopes Wrexham can use the pain of their Carabao Cup exit to Cardiff City as fuel for their mouthwatering contest with Championship leaders Coventry City on Friday (20:00 GMT).

The Red Dragons suffered a hugely disappointing 2-1 loss to the Bluebirds on Tuesday, but head into the Sky Blues encounter having lost just one of their past seven league games.

"We're obviously disappointed with going out of the cup and we've got take the pain of that together as a collective and look to respond," Parkinson told BBC Sport Wales.

"However, we go into this game on the back of two really good league performances.

"We fully respect Coventry but we're not going to fear them. They've had a very good start, but we've got to believe in ourselves like we've done a lot of times already this season."

Coventry are the only club in the Championship who remain unbeaten this season, with Frank Lampard's free-scoring side averaging three goals per game away from home in the league this term.

They head to the Stok Cae Ras having won six Championship matches in a row and scoring 19 times.

And Parkinson is only too aware his side will need to be at their best if they are to claim a positive result.

"They've scored a lot of goals and we've got to be switched on to that in terms of set-play situations as well because they've done very well in that area of the game," he added.

"It goes without saying, their record is there for all to see.

"We'll need to be our best, but that's obviously the case in any Championship game. You've got to reach levels and have consistent seven or eight out of 10s across the pitch to get points."

Having suffered play-off heartache during his time as Derby County head coach, former England midfielder Lampard endured further pain after the regular season last term when Coventry were beaten by Sunderland in the play-off semi-finals.

"He did well at Derby in his first job where he got to the play-offs and did well," said Parkinson.

"Subsequently he's had a couple of Premier League jobs and he's gone into Coventry, last year play-offs and this year obviously they're looking to go that one step further."